President Biden has recently touted the decline in illegal border crossings. (Getty Images)
In FY 2020, there were 136,808 gotaways at the border. That number then rose to 387,398 in FY 2021, which coincided with the last months of the Trump administration and the first months of the Biden administration.
As the migrant numbers at the southern border rose to crisis levels, so did the number of gotaways -- with numbers then skyrocketing to 606,131 in FY 2022 and 670,674 in FY 23.
This means that there were more gotaways in FY21-23 (1.6 million) than the decade of FY 2010 and FY 2020 (1.4 million).
Immigrants wait to be processed at a U.S. Border Patrol transit center after they crossed the border from Mexico on December 20, 2023 in Eagle Pass, Texas. A late-year surge of migrants crossing the U.S.southern border has overwhelmed U.S. immigration officials. (John Moore/Getty Images)
"If a person is willing to put themselves into harm’s way crossing through very remote, very dangerous conditions to evade capture, you have to ask yourself why. What makes them willing to take that risk?" he told a House committee in May 2023. "That’s of concern to me. What’s also of concern to me is I don’t know who that individual is. I don’t know where they came from. I don’t know what their intention is. I don’t know what they brought with them. That unknown represents a risk, a threat. It’s of great concern to anybody that wears this uniform."
Officials have also said that, due to increased investments in technology, there is greater situational awareness than before, leading to more detections of "gotaways" than in prior years.
"Because we have gotten more detection capability, because we have…more on the way, we’ve got the additional processing coordinators, we are in a better situation than we were in years past," Owens said.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has previously noted changes in migration flow in correspondence with Congress.
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"Before 2013, the majority of individuals attempting to cross the border entered without being caught," he said in a letter in January to the House Homeland Security Committee. "Under this administration, the estimated annual apprehension rate has averaged 78%, the same average rate of apprehension as in the prior administration."
DHS has instead said it is working within a "broken" immigration system in desperate need of reform and additional funding from Congress. It has also pointed to 720,000 removals or returns of illegal immigrants since May 2023, more than in every full fiscal year since 2011.
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Most recently it has backed a bipartisan Senate bill that would increase funding, while also providing a mechanism to turn back border crossers when they reach a certain level. But conservative lawmakers rejected that measure, saying it would normalize high levels of illegal immigration.
Fox News' Griff Jenkins and Emmett Jones contributed to this report.
Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital, primarily covering immigration and border security.
He can be reached at adam.shaw2@fox.com or on Twitter.
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https://www.foxnews.com/politics/new-data-reveals-illegal-immigrants-eluding-border-patrol-spiked-under-biden-surpassing-predecessors